Over the last few weeks I seem to have gathered quite a collection of letters from the Inland Revenue. I never enjoy getting letters from the IR. It isn’t that they are nasty people, but I suspect that no-one likes paying tax. Heck, probably the taxman doesn’t like paying tax either.

The letters have turned out to be a motley collection of tax codes. These, if you don’t know, are the codes that loosely work out what tax you pay and when and generally get adjusted based on what the IR think you owe them. The first tax code was nice – saying that my tax free allowance had increased. Why, thank you. The next, following hot on its heels a few days later said that actually, it had reduced. Okay. Then, a week later, I had a dreaded ‘K’ code which means that apparently I now owed the IR a four figure sum which would be collected by taxing all my earnings at a starting rate of 20% with no tax free allowance. Today I have just received a cheque for “tax that [I] have overpaid” along with a letter that explains that in effect the last couple of weeks’ correspondence can be filed in the big yellow coloured out tray that the council happily empty into a large lorry every two weeks.

As much as I love to feel that I’m important enough to get lots of post, Mr Tax man, please make up your mind.